


Moments of Wanting

by TransSatya



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Clowns, F/F, Space Battles, Space Opera, Yearning, a single tiny reference to dirk strider existing, happily married RoseMary, implied depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:02:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23520520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TransSatya/pseuds/TransSatya
Summary: Most ships traveled galactic distances by folding space. Aradia traveled by folding time. She’d look up at the stars, decide which twinkling light seemed the most interesting to her, and then begin to fly.
Relationships: Aradia Megido/Feferi Peixes, Nepeta Leijon/Aradia Megido/Feferi Peixes, Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam
Comments: 12
Kudos: 21
Collections: Ladystuck Art/Fic Exchange 2020





	Moments of Wanting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [earthseaBorealis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/earthseaBorealis/gifts).



> Written for Ladystuck 2020. Three of the prompts mentioned space and somehow that caused this fic to exist.

Most ships traveled galactic distances by folding space. Aradia traveled by folding time. She’d look up at the stars, decide which twinkling light seemed the most interesting to her, and then begin to fly. It could take her more then an hour to leave an atmosphere, and at her flying speed it would take her an impossible amount of time in the void to reach anything.

Aradia could look across the impossible amount of time and she could beckon the end closer to herself. It was happy to shorten itself for her, compressing identical eons of void into seconds. She’d fly forward and find herself at exactly the spot she wanted to be without having to cross any real amount of time at all.

Usually she followed her whims when flitting about the universe. Whims that focused mostly on dead civilizations. She especially loved when she found ancient buildings or ancient corpses. It was a solitary quest that rarely involved any of her friends. That didn’t bother her, she knew that given long enough she would see them all again. This was the first time she had felt compelled to seek any of them out.

She was standing in the ruins of a civilization that predated her involvement in this universe by millions of years. They had been creatures of silicon and the art they left of themselves reminded Aradia of crabs. From what she could tell, they had been twice as tall as she was and had no reason to leave writing at her eye level. Especially not writing in Alternian, in her handwriting, and in her color.

find feferi

She frowned as she looked at the writing, ancient ink that had been kept pristine with a little bit of time magic that had to have come from an older version of herself. The one person she would not begrudge for forcing her out of her self directed wanderings and into a quest. She took out a little-used phone.

ARADIA: hello!  
ROSE: Does being an extension of the concept of time make it any easier for you to know if this particular one is good or bad?  
ARADIA: um... not really  
ARADIA: im not a seer  
ARADIA: sorry I can call back  
ROSE: No, no, its fine. Or it’s preferable to the outcome of you losing track of time and not contacting any of us again for another decade.  
ARADIA: am i missed?  
ROSE: On the list of trolls I have hit on in my life, you were rather high up. And also there are others here who know you well and probably do think about you regularly. I have no intention of telling any of them that I was the one you decided to talk to as opposed to responding to the mountain of unread messages.

Aradia glanced at the tab for unread messages. The application had long since given up showing a number. She didn’t feel any real guilt about it, she’d had her phone on silent for more than a decade and was at peace with the consequences. 

ARADIA: ive been having so much fun exploring that i havent been keeping track of them  
ARADIA: is that bad?  
ROSE: I haven’t sent many of them so I am not the person to ask. Did you want something? I’m sorry to be curt but I am rather busy.  
ARADIA: right  
ARADIA: i need to find feferi  
ARADIA: and then come back to where i am to complete a timeloop  
ARADIA: any idea where i should go?  
ROSE: Earth-V  
ARADIA: there are that many earths now?  
ROSE: There are way too many earths.  
ROSE: We ran out of letters a while ago, this is just the one she and I are both at.  
ROSE: Exponential population growth is a bitch.  
ARADIA: why are you there?  
ROSE: To save my wife.

Aradia had found out as much as she cared to. She could guess the rest and the specifics of whatever had caused the conflict were not her concern or problem. She climbed up away from the dead planet, slightly sad to have to leave all of the vintage artifacts of time behind. Finding Earth-V was not difficult. Her phone was part of the web of entangled particles that made up the intergalactic internet. Finding out where to go was a quick search, and getting there was just a matter of folding time until she was in the right part of space.

She found herself at a battle above Earth-V. Places like this had an entirely different appeal to the tombs Aradia had engrossed herself in. Whatever the war was, this was its final battle. There were hundreds of capital ships, huge vessels the size of cities that resembled their distant nautical ancestors. Their broadside cannons fired at each other in a three dimensional exchange of lasers and railgun shots. Even the smallest decisions here were life and death, and the sheer number of potential branches that sprung from this battle caused the time around it to condense into a thick, swirling vortex.

Aradia could not fold or tame this stretch of time, she could only follow its current. It was exhilarating and she smiled as she flew into the maelstrom. The single largest ship had to be Feferi’s, it was a golden commandship that resembled a trident. That was her target.

Many of the ships in her path were painted green with golden weapons. She knew which demon the green ones took their image from; from there she could guess some of the nature of this war. The demon had long since been vanquished and she had no fear of his followers.  


One of these managed to notice the little maroon spec that was not a drone or a star fighter. Aradia saw the gun turn towards her. She smiled even wider. She kept flying. The battleship fired, lasers and rail cannons assisted by computers to shoot at her precisely.

There was a last moment before Aradia would have been obliterated. She reached out towards the moment after that. Pulling herself forward and avoiding destruction entirely as, to the eyes of everyone else, her body seemed to teleport forward onto the deck of the ship.

Rose Lalonde had been surrounded while doing something heroic. She’d forgone the bright orange garb of a seer for a stealth suit that was appropriately black and form fitting. The perfect outfit to save her wife in. It was not the outfit she wanted to die in.

Her and Kanaya stood back to back, Rose with her wands out and Kanaya brandishing a metal chair. Kanaya was glowing brightly, her fangs bared. She wore an abaya and headscarf and was quite angry about the very long series of days that had been the current week. Especially since it seemed likely to end in her death to a mixed group of humans and trolls wearing clown makeup. They had a bothersome amount of laser guns shaped like assault rifles, all badly spray painted gold.

KANAYA: Please Tell Me You Bothered To Prepare Last Words  
ROSE: For a lot of circumstances, yes. Not for this one. Sorry dear.  
KANAYA: I Will Try To Find It In Me To Forgive You For This Oversight

And then Aradia landed on the deck and they were saved.

Rose cursed her ecto-biological father. Not for any of his major sins, even though there were many. She cursed him because the first thought to come to her mind had been the phrase “Za warudo” and there was nothing she could do about this fact.

KANAYA: Hello Aradia  
ARADIA: hey kanaya hey rose  
ARADIA: do i want to know what this whole thing is about?  
KANAYA: Not Really, It Is A Very Long And Tedious Story Involving Clowns  
ROSE: It’s got exactly the proportions of stupidity and tragedy that you’d expect from a type three civilization going to war.

Rose gave herself a moment to calm down and then began the process of committing cold blooded murder, incinerating the clowns around them one by one while Aradia kept them frozen in time.

ROSE: Thank you for saving our lives by the way. You didn’t have to get involved.  
ARADIA: i mean i wasn’t going to just let them kill both of you when im here and can help  
ARADIA: besides they shot at me :D

It occured to Rose that she had never actually witnessed Aradia’s vengeful side. Aradia's wide smile was unsettling in a way that she found rather attractive and Rose found herself intensely curious about the girl behind it.

ROSE: Any luck with your quest to find Feferi?  
ARADIA: not yet  
ARADIA: shes in the big golden ship right? these guys got in my way... were they all guys?  
KANAYA: Mostly  
KANAYA: The Gender Ratio Is About What You Would Expect From A Misogynistic Clown Cult  
KANAYA: Fuck All Of Those Guys Pretty Much  
ARADIA: oh wow that does sound irritating  
ARADIA: i agree i dont want to know more  
ARADIA: besides maybe why my future self decided i need to be here for her?  
ROSE: She was you at one point. Any ideas? Anything here you could want enough to be worth guaranteeing with a time loop.  
ARADIA: not really...i don’t know that i want anything that much or really at all?  
KANAYA:  
ROSE: I didn’t say anything!  
KANAYA:  
ROSE: I’m just going to leave that on the metaphorical ground, I won’t interrogate it. You know I am trying to be better about that.  
ARADIA: 0_0  
KANAYA: We Have Been Working On Her Tendency Towards Dissecting The Psyches Of Everyone She Speaks To  
KANAYA: On Her Request  
ROSE: It’s probably hurt my ability to make friends I didn't meet when I was thirteen.  
ARADIA: oh yeah that checks out  
ARADIA: i dont mind though...i want to figure out what it is future aradia wanted  
KANAYA: Would Keeping Us Alive Be One Of Future Aradia's Priorities?  
ARADIA: i dont think she would deface a tomb just for that  
ARADIA: i wouldnt anyway  
ARADIA: no offense  
ROSE: Not much taken. Realistically some bullshit would have worked itself out in our favor if you hadn’t come.  
KANAYA: The Universe Does Owe Us Some Beneficial Bullshit

The ship shook as it started to take more fire, a significant portion of its crew was incinerated and it was likely to follow suit in its entirety.

KANAYA: I Vote We Do That Thing Where I Am On The Ground As The One Person Here Who Still Cannot Fly  
ROSE: Agreed.  
KANAYA: Aradia It Was Wonderful Seeing You And Having My Life Saved By You  
ARADIA: no problem, see all of you on the ground :D

She waved goodbye as Rose and Kanaya worked their way towards the escape pods. Aradia simply stepped off the deck and out into the void.

Aradia found herself in a quiet moment. She froze that moment and looked around. Ships were burning and lasers were flying, but none of it had anything really to do with her. The ship behind her had silently exploded in space, but she could see a single escape pod rocketing away from the wreckage.

The clowns were losing but were also refusing to just go down without a fight. They wanted to struggle to the end in the service of the demon they refused to believe had been vanquished. The many soldiers fighting the clowns wanted to survive and not live in a universe ruled by clowns. Rose had wanted her wife. Aradia’s future self wanted her here.

ARADIA: why am i here?

The frozen moment did not answer. She let her ever present smile fall and then sighed. Time would stay frozen for her so long as she didn’t move and she wasn’t quite sure why to bother. 

The frozen ships falling apart were more than enough to occupy her attention. Her hobby was to study the dead and studying the moments of death around her was not much different from that. She could easily connect the dots between the live cannons and the dead debris. The battle had its own story that she could uncover if she stayed still in her single safe moment.

ARADIA: WHY AM I HERE!?

She yelled into the void around her, into this moment that was only for her. She yelled to herself, for the sake of herself. She yelled because if she kept avoiding the question she would be stuck in the moment forever and she would never know what she wanted.

She found herself looking at the escape pod and thinking of the married women inside. They could not know that Aradia had frozen this moment with them in it.

ARADIA: would you two stay together in this moment if you could?

And as Aradia asked, she realized that they wouldn’t. They had the moment after this one to look forward to, and the moment after that. Some day they would run out of moments together, but that didn’t mean they would sacrifice the moments between then and now, even if it meant that they could keep this moment of togetherness forever.

Aradia wanted that, she wanted moments in her future so precious that she would be unwilling to stay in the moment she was in. She took the message of her future self as a promise. If she found Feferi, she would find something that would give her what she wanted. She had an idea of what that something was, even if she didn’t quite know the shape of it.

Aradia flew forward. Time resumed. Feferi was not hard to find. Even against the golden deck of her capital ship, Feferi’s jewelry gleamed. She was dressed like an admiral from some old navy, a long white jacket with a green and blue sash and fuchsia epaulettes. She was in a duel of some kind, her trident spinning around her as she deflected blows from a club wielding, purple-blooded, clown who wore a crown of wilted flowers. He laughed maniacally, his expression was a wide and ugly parody of a smile.

Aradia could not begin to care who he was. This was the most important part of the space battle, the duel for which the rest was just backdrop, and Aradia only had eyes for Feferi. She had a joyful smile on her face as she fought, her musical giggling cutting through the harsh grating clown laughter. Aradia felt herself come awake as she watched her.

Feferi was not fighting for her life, if anything she was playing with her food the way a dolphin would. She was not one of those people who needed to be in mortal peril to feel something. Life was her aspect, just by existing she overflowed with energy. And in that energy, Aradia saw the thing that she would need to tell her past self to seek out.

The clown raised his arm. Before he could bring his club down on his opponent, a whip wrapped around his neck. Aradia pulled on her whip with all her strength, the clown stumbled back and Feferi took her opening, stabbing her trident into the clown's chest. The clown fell and Feferi rushed forward to wrap her old friend in a hug.

FEFERI: ARADIA! OH COD ITS BEEN FOREVER! 38D  
ARADIA: i know... i cant talk to you if i cant breathe  
FEFERI: O)( sorry...

She loosened the hug but didn’t outright let Aradia go.

FEFERI: T)(anks for t)(e )(elp by t)(e way.  
ARADIA: you didnt need it  
FEFERI: W)(ale no, not really. But still, it was nice of you. So w)(at’re you doing )(ere anyway? Weren’t you doing your w)(ole...  
ARADIA: whole?  
FEFERI: I don’t really know exactly? You just sort of went off and sometimes you send snaps from god knows w)(ere in t)(e universe next to some weird bones? Don’t get me wrong, t)(ey are really cool weird bones but glub if I know w)(at you’re acts)(oally doing?  
ARADIA: i couldnt really tell you either  
ARADIA: cataloguing i guess  
ARADIA: or maybe that is the wrong word since im not writing anything down  
ARADIA: maybe i was looking for something?  
FEFERI: But you don’t know w)(at so you just keep glubbing around until somefin comes along for you to get swept up in?  
ARADIA: kind of  
ARADIA: or maybe thats exactly it  
ARADIA: have you been okay? Or...ocray?  
FEFERI: 38D  
FEFERI: I mean, I did just win a big battle so I’m fin-fucking-tastic.

The battle was more or less over. The lightshow in the sky had ended as clowns either died or surrendered. The vortex of possibilities that had been the timeline had calmed down a small stream that Aradia could easily swim through. She could leave. She didn’t want to. Especially not when she was in Feferi’s arms.

FEFERI: Also I guess I get to keep t)(e s)(ip and t)(e bling now?  
ARADIA: its been a long week of bullshit?  
FEFERI: Cod, it never fucking ends... But )(onestly? I kind of needed some bulls)(it. I’m realy, R-E-ELY glad you only came by now.  
FEFERI: You get to sea me be a cool space captain and not a useless mola in a society wit)( no monarc)(y. Now I’ve got all t)(is!

She turned to gesture towards the deck of the ship. There was an amount of crew who were being very respectful of their captain and the out of context time fairy that had shown up. Aradia suddenly felt like she’d intruded on the last chapter of a much longer story. Feferi still had an arm around her, which is what kept her from wanting to disappear.

FEFERI: Also you missed most of t)(e clowns  
ARADIA: im very glad about that part

Aradia saw what looked like Nepeta in the distance, cleaning her claws. She waved and Nepeta waved back. Feferi blew Nepeta a kiss and suddenly Aradia felt even more like she was intruding upon something.

ARADIA: i should go...  
FEFERI: But w)(at if you didn’t?  
ARADIA: excuse me?  
FEFERI: W)(at if you didn’t go? W)(at if you stayed?  
ARADIA: i shouldnt im not involved...  
FEFERI: You did just )(elp krill t)(e big bad guy.  
ARADIA: you could have handled that by yourself!  
FEFERI: Gill, let me say nice t)(ings about you.  
ARADIA: sorry :(  
FEFERI: Don’t apologize... I’m going to try somet)(ing..

She stopped hugging Aradia all together.

FEFERI: No press)(ore, okay. Like actually none. You got it? If you say no, t)(en I’ll back off.  
ARADIA: i think so?

Aradia became aware that her cheeks were heating up.

ARADIA: actually no i dont  
FEFERI: I’m going to kiss you, silly!

And then she leaned forward, confident that she hadn’t misjudged Aradia but giving her plenty of time to stop this. For her part, Aradia found herself not reaching for her powers. She felt like she had forgotten how to speak. It was within her power to freeze time at this moment and think about what she really wanted. But there was a moment after that where she was kissing Feferi and she didn’t want to delay that moment for anything.

It was more accurate to say that Feferi was kissing her. This was not Aradia’s first kiss, but it was the first one she didn’t expect she’d regret. She found herself in Feferi’s arms again, all of the anxiety she hadn’t realized she was feeling was melting out of her. Aradia valued being alive, but she could only think of a handful of moments that made her feel as alive as this one.

The moment over too soon but Aradia didn’t mind, she knew that with the way Feferi was still holding her, there would be plenty more moments like this one.

NEPETA: :33 < well, well, whale  
NEPETA: :33 < suddenly i wish i still kept my chart  
NEPETA: :33 < then again that chart was so quadra-normative.

Nepeta was standing beside then, looking very pleased with this development. She was also slightly covered in the blood of clowns, but that didn’t detract from how nice it felt for Aradia to see her.

FEFERI: Yea)(, besides w)(o )(as time to work on c)(arts w)(en you are part of a cool and sexy group of space adventurers!  
ARADIA: hello nepeta  
NEPETA: :33 < hey aradia.  
NEPETA: :33 < so like, if it wasn’t obvious, i am already someone who kisses feferi a lot.  
FEFERI: Yup, a lot a lot.  
FEFERI: So if you want to stay... w)(ale t)(ere is t)(at. W)(ic)( mig)(t be a plus or a minus depending? Did I sell you on t)(e idea.  
ARADIA: probably  
ARADIA: im trying to remember how words work  
ARADIA: im going to go with yes  
ARADIA: not just because its something to do  
ARADIA: i think... i think right now... i want this  
FEFERI: Purrfect 38D

Nepeta kissed Feferi on the cheek for stealing her pun, and then for good measure she kissed Aradia on the cheek as well and put her arms around the both of them to join in the hug. Aradia smiled as she was sandwiched between the two women. At some point she’d have to go and leave a message for her past self. But that could wait, for right now this was where she wanted to be.  


  



End file.
